Biblical Success - Running Our Race With a Personal TrainerSample

How do we connect the dots? How can we compare the role of our helper The Holy Spirit with the role of a personal trainer in the life of an elite athlete and how can we access Him?

Elite athletes know that to be their best they need coaching from an expert that will observe them in the discipline they are working to improve and give them guidance on what aspect they need to polish or correct or adjust to get better. The trainer will suggest drills and specific exercises to strengthen the specific muscles or endurance training that will be most helpful to whatever stage of development the athlete is at that point.

Our Helper knows us far more intimately than any human coach ever could but He works in much the same manner. He sees us where we are in relation to God’s will and suggests tactics and exercises to move us closer or further along the track of “the race set before us” which is the will of God. It is actually the “narrow way, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:14)

Only a few will find it but every Christ follower can find it with the help of our Helper. We need Him to act as an internal GPS guidance system to urge us toward the center of the narrow way when we slip or stumble or get confused. In all situations that we encounter, He is there and functioning. Developing the communion with our Helper that we need in real-time in life as we live takes both time and intentionality.

We will need the enlightenment of our Helper to make clear to us that we are in a constant state of spiritual warfare in which our flesh, or old nature, wars against our renewed spirit, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another." (Galatians 5:16)

This will be a life-long battle for every believer including your author.

We battle against the world, our flesh, and the devil as each appears in our thought life as temptations to distract, deflect, or discourage us from pressing into the will of God. Our Helper gives us discernment to see these temptations for what they are. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” (Corinthians 10:3-6)

Our obedience is fulfilled as we discern thoughts that are not helpful or ungodly and bring them to Jesus in our mind if not verbally. Your author uses the practice upon discerning an evil thought of mentally saying “Lord Jesus I don’t want this thought please take it from me “taking it captive to Christ.” Sometimes, if the urge is strong, I may have to repeat it but “He that lives in me is greater than he that is in the world” and they must flee. Our Trainer will teach us how to take every thought captive. It will take practice and effort but what that has value in life doesn’t? Think about this last statement.